WASHINGTON: The invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make a state visit to the US comes amid efforts to achieve a quantum leap in bilateral ties, with India’s national security adviser, Ajit Doval, and his US counterpart, Jake Sullivan, tasked with launching a Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) initiative that officials suggest will top anything the two countries, long prone to mutual distrust, have achieved so far, including the civilian nuclear agreement of 2005.
“The US really views that this is in our strategic interest to support India’s rise as a global power. We see that in both the Quad and as India’s presidency of the G-20. This describes a greater vision of this coherent US-Indo Pacific strategy that requires that both the US and India pull closer together and overcome long-standing obstacles to doing so,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters in a conference call.
The White House said in factsheet it released that the two sides would also strengthen cooperation on human spaceflight, including establishing exchanges that will include advanced training for an Indian Space Research Organisation/Department of Space astronaut at the Nasa Johnson Space Center. Nasa administrator Bill Nelson will visit India later this year, it added. The factsheet noted that the US has received an application from General Electric to jointly produce jet engines that could power jet aircraft operated and produced indigenously by India. The US commits to an expeditious review of this application, it said. In New Delhi, the ministry of external affairs said iCET “aims to position the two countries as trusted technology partners by building technology value chains and support the co-development and co-production of items. It also aims to address regulatory restrictions, export controls and mobility barriers through a standing mechanism. The US side also assured support to ease export barriers to India in a few critical areas, including through efforts towards legislative changes.”
In the field of semiconductors, the US supported the development of a fabrication ecosystem in India, and encouraged joint ventures and partnerships for mature technology nodes and advanced packaging, the MEA said, adding that a task force involving India’s Semiconductor Mission, India Electronics Semiconductor Association and the US Semiconductor Industry Association would be constituted to develop a “readiness assessment”.
Sullivan and Doval met at the White House on Tuesday along with their respective high-powered delegations for the inaugural iCET dialogue, discussing a range of technology transfers, exchanges, and cooperation, including bilateral space cooperation.
Doval also met Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, acting defence secretary Kathleen Hicks, key senators and industry leaders. He is scheduled to meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken during the visit. Officials from the two sides met under the aegis of the US-India Civil Space Joint Working Group on Tuesday to discuss collaboration in Earth and space science as well as human space exploration, global navigation satellite systems, spaceflight safety and space situational awareness, and policies for commercial space.
Accounts of Indian presence in the US space programme, the stuff of diaspora lore, was visible in the US team that included Chirag Parikh, deputy assistant to the President and executive secretary of the National Space Council. The two sides also signed a new implementation arrangement for a research agency partnership between the National Science Foundation and Indian science agencies to expand collaboration in a range of areas.
“The US really views that this is in our strategic interest to support India’s rise as a global power. We see that in both the Quad and as India’s presidency of the G-20. This describes a greater vision of this coherent US-Indo Pacific strategy that requires that both the US and India pull closer together and overcome long-standing obstacles to doing so,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters in a conference call.
The White House said in factsheet it released that the two sides would also strengthen cooperation on human spaceflight, including establishing exchanges that will include advanced training for an Indian Space Research Organisation/Department of Space astronaut at the Nasa Johnson Space Center. Nasa administrator Bill Nelson will visit India later this year, it added. The factsheet noted that the US has received an application from General Electric to jointly produce jet engines that could power jet aircraft operated and produced indigenously by India. The US commits to an expeditious review of this application, it said. In New Delhi, the ministry of external affairs said iCET “aims to position the two countries as trusted technology partners by building technology value chains and support the co-development and co-production of items. It also aims to address regulatory restrictions, export controls and mobility barriers through a standing mechanism. The US side also assured support to ease export barriers to India in a few critical areas, including through efforts towards legislative changes.”
In the field of semiconductors, the US supported the development of a fabrication ecosystem in India, and encouraged joint ventures and partnerships for mature technology nodes and advanced packaging, the MEA said, adding that a task force involving India’s Semiconductor Mission, India Electronics Semiconductor Association and the US Semiconductor Industry Association would be constituted to develop a “readiness assessment”.
Sullivan and Doval met at the White House on Tuesday along with their respective high-powered delegations for the inaugural iCET dialogue, discussing a range of technology transfers, exchanges, and cooperation, including bilateral space cooperation.
Doval also met Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, acting defence secretary Kathleen Hicks, key senators and industry leaders. He is scheduled to meet US secretary of state Antony Blinken during the visit. Officials from the two sides met under the aegis of the US-India Civil Space Joint Working Group on Tuesday to discuss collaboration in Earth and space science as well as human space exploration, global navigation satellite systems, spaceflight safety and space situational awareness, and policies for commercial space.
Accounts of Indian presence in the US space programme, the stuff of diaspora lore, was visible in the US team that included Chirag Parikh, deputy assistant to the President and executive secretary of the National Space Council. The two sides also signed a new implementation arrangement for a research agency partnership between the National Science Foundation and Indian science agencies to expand collaboration in a range of areas.
